Thanksgiving Treats

Hi all! Today’s my Friday! How about that? It’s a good feeling knowing that I get the day to myself tomorrow.

• 2/3 cup water
• 1/3 PC 5 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• 1/3 cup pear sauce
• sprinkle of Dorset cereal

Yum in my tum!

I had another really productive day at work. It’s great knowing that I’m going into the busiest part of next week prepared. Mid morning I ate a piece of apple butter bread;

I hopped on the elliptical today at the gym. I felt a little off my game for some reason, but still managed to get a good workout in.

• Time: 40 minutes
• Avg Hr: 150
• Max Hr: 166
• Calories Torched: 386
• Distance: 4.4 miles

I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed my lunch today. I packed a container of V8 Corn & Chipotle soup and was pretty excited to try it out because it had lots of whole corn kernels in it. I also brought 3 Ryvita crackers;

I can’t pinpoint what I didn’t like about this soup. It was just a strange blend of flavours, I guess. Blah… I chased it with some cocoa roasted almonds.

MUCH better! Just before leaving work my Thanksgiving baking order from a local (trade) high school, CHSS, came in. Check this out!

These sugar cookies are for the kids to bring to school tomorrow to share with their classmates.

The next layer had Mom’s ginger snap cookies, pumpkin pie tarts and mine and Mom’s whole wheat buns. The buns are $1/doz. Can’t go wrong with that!

The bottom layer had my hubby’s pumpkin pie and Mom’s pecan pie. My hubby tore into the tarts as soon as I walked in the door. Here’s what they look like;

While on break today, I walked over to Tim Horton’s and bought myself a box of their Pumpkin Spice tea;

SO, both the the kids were on the ice tonight from 5:30 until 6:20…but at different rinks. :/ I baked up a frozen pizza for them and warmed up some ambercup squash with a dollop of Dijonnaise as a snack for myself;

I took DD to her lesson and popped into the adjoining library while I was there. I found 5 cookbooks that I’ll be going through a bit later. YAHOO! When we got home all I wanted to eat was some comfort food. My tummy’s been a little sour all day so I went with some Windy Hill Farms cremo cereal;

This was 1 cup water, 1/3 cup cremo cereal, cinnamon, raisins, almond butter and fig preserves. It went down real nice!

CSI and The Vampire Diaries are on in a bit so I’ll be shutting down soon. I’m totally hooked on the Vampire Diaries even though it’s kinda cheesy. All the eye candy makes up for that, though! :)

Bye for now!!

Back to The BSI: Blogger Secret Ingredient

Happy Saturday, everyone! Today’s been a bit of a mixed bag for me, but it’s all good. It started out quite early for a Saturday…6am to be exact. DS woke up with a bit of a stomach bug. After ditching the germs down the drain, he fell back asleep for another few hours. He woke up in a panic that he missed his hockey game and even though I called the coach to say he wouldn’t be there, he went, he played and he was F.I.N.E. Only a children could do that!

Backing up a wee bit, here’s b-fast!

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup rye flakes
• cinnamon
• raisins
• cashew butter and fig preserves

This filled my belly and kept me going until 2pm.

DS and I made our way to the grocery store around 9:30. We had 2 stops to make…Food Basics for our regular groceries and Zehrs for a few items that FB doesn’t carry. (Quinoa, almond breeze, Becel spray butter, ground flax). Zehrs is right beside the rink so seeing as DS ended up going to hockey, we put that stop off until after the game. The boys lost again, but still played well. Finally it was home time, put food away, eat!

• 1 cup Fage
• scoop of pumpkin butter
• Nature’s Path PB granola

I also made a “latte” using this new (to me) tea I found at Zehrs…

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan I combined a 1/2 cup of USVAB with 1 cup of water and a tea bag. I let it come to a simmer and then put the heat to low for about 5 minutes. You just have to be careful that the “dairy” doesn’t scald on you! This tea was superb….but that was a given seeing as chocolate was in it! :D

I spent some time blog reading and browsing recipes books before we ventured out again to get the boys skates sharpened and a new pair for DD as she starts lessons this Thursday and her skates were WAY to small. When we got back, my hubby put a beer butt chicken on the BBQ (and I’ll have you know that it was storming AND hailing at this point…we’re crazy like that!) and I munched on some almonds to silence my belly.

Then I got started on my BSI recipe! I participated in the contest for quite a few weeks last winter, but got out of it when the warmer weather hit. When I saw that Coco had picked cauliflower as the secret ingredient, I knew it was time to get back into it!

Cauliflower & Barley Pilaf

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• handful shredded carrot (or 1 small chopped)
• 2 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 cup barley
• 1.5 cups of stock (beef/veg/chicken or water…I used chicken)
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1/2 bag of frozen cauliflower, partially thawed (could use 1 small fresh chopped up)
• 1/2 tsp each salt, pepper, cumin, cinnamon, chili powder & dry oregano

1. heat oil in pan
2. add onion, carrots and garlic…cook about 5 minutes making sure garlic doesn’t burn
3. add barley and let toast for a few minutes
4. pour in stock, boil, cover and lower heat to low for 10 mins (if need be, add extra broth)
5. add tomatoes & cauliflower, stir to combine well
6. cover and cook an additional 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and barley is tender
7. uncover, stir and let sit 5 minutes before serving

This turned out FABULOUS! You could really use any grain. Remember….cauliflower is the star here. I just happen to love barley. If using another grain, just adjust liquid to the type you use. This is the oil that I ended up using for a little extra pizzazz;

YUM! So I paired a generous serving of the pilaf with some chicken breast and half a buttercup squash that was also done on the BBQ.

What a meal! And as I sit here and type, I am stuffed!! If the urge arises later (which I’m sure it will) I plan on a piece of the pumpkin apple butter bread I made the other day. I think we’ll be watching a movie once the kids hit the hay, too. I know…we’re party animals! LOL!

Bye for now!!

Vacation Day 13 - Ontario Place

We finally made it to Ontario Place! Only took us almost 2 weeks to get back there. We left a little earlier today to try to avoid traffic and it worked. I made a quick bowl of oats before we left;

• 2/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup PC 5 grain cereal
• cinnamon
• raisins
• cinnamon honey
• Sahale snack mix-walnut

It was smooth sailing all the way into the city so we were there by 11:30. Even though it was still a bit early, we decided to eat our lunches so that we didn’t get to deep into the park and have a long trek with hungry kids back to the Jeep. I made myself a WW bagel with fig preserves, LC cheese, deli chicken breast and lettuce;

Pretty much the same as yesterday, but still delish. I also ate a handful of each gold fish and pop chips…

Then off we went on our adventure for the day!

It’s nice now that the kids are a bit older and we don’t have to really chase them around. While they were in the play areas, my hubby and I sat in the sunshine and waited for them to come back. I waited a lot of years to be able to do that! :) Here they are with the Kool Aid guy;

And waiting to get buckled into a ride very similar to “Drop Zone”;

We all went on a water ride where you go along a “river” in a canoe enjoying the sights and the final hurrah takes you up a steep hill like a coaster and down you go into the water. This is what the end of the ride looks like;

And here’s DD and after after getting off. We were wet, but not soaked!

After 4 hours of fun, it was time to come home. When we got back to the jeep I ate a refreshing mango:

We hit a bit of traffic but nothing crazy like yesterday. We’re really only on the major highway for a half hour…the other half is a normal 2 lane highway. Once we got to that point I pulled out a Nature’s Valley Fruit & Nut bar as I was getting pretty hungry!

We were sitting down to dinner by 6pm….good timing for us! I had an Yves Veggie dog…half in an English muffin with ketchup, Dijon and relish…the other half on the side. There was also grilled zucchini that I picked from the garden yesterday.

And to finish the meal off? I savoured a Cravings cheesecake that I came across in the freezer!

We’ve got friends coming over shortly for the SYTYCD finale, and I have a couple of PB & chocolate chip cookies with my name on them! Mmmmm…

I may be blogging at a weird time tomorrow as I have very fun dinner plans back in the city with a surprise companion and I have no idea when I’ll be home. You must keep a look out for my post, though because you don’t want to miss who I’m meeting up with!!!

Bye for now!!

Vacation Day 12 - Casa Loma

Hi, lovelies! Well, we ended up going with an indoor option today as there were severe thunderstorm warnings in the region all day. Read on to see where we went!

I made some killer pancakes for breakfast to get me going…

These beauty’s had a a packet of Amazing Grass Green Super Food blended into them as well as some chopped up strawberries. I spread each pancake with some Crofter’s super fruit jam and then sprinkled them with walnut pieces….

Here’s a close up of the jam I used which was awesome, by the way!

After packing up some lunches and taking a much needed shower, we were off to our destination; Casa Loma. Casa Loma is in T.O. (most everything is in T.O.!) and I’d never been before. We weren’t sure if the kid’s would enjoy it as it’s mainly a tour of the caslte, but we had tickets that came with our Toronto City Pass and, most importantly, the bulk of stuff to see was inside. It turned out to be a way cool joint! Here are some shots of the place…

If you look to the top of the next photo, you can just make out the CN Tower. I would imagine that it would be a very clear view on a bright day.

I took some photos inside, but my camera wasn’t playing nice so they’re a bit dark.

And here’s a few with us in them!

The one of the kids at the top was taken in one of the horse stables. Pretty nice, eh? I did end up pouring so we didn’t get to see as much of the grounds as we would’ve liked, but as we were leaving the kids told us that they thought the castle was very cool and they were glad we went. Mission accomplished!

I almost forgot about lunch! I had myself a sammie made with WW bread, fig preserves, LC cheese, deli ham and lettuce…

And some freshly picked yellow cherry tomatoes from the garden!

Traffic going in to the city was great, but coming home was a snails pace again. A 1hr ride turned into 2. Blah. By the time we got back to town it was after 6 and the kids were apparently dying of starvation even though we ate our snacks upon leaving. I tried out a Kashi Pumpkin Pie bar;

As with the Dark Chocolate Coconut, this one had a creamy coating atop it with some nuts sprinkled on…

This bar was just meh. I felt like I was straining to taste the pumpkin pie flavour. It won’t kill me to finish the box but I won’t buy this flavour again.

Back to how I starve my kids…DS had his player of the game get a free kids meal coupon from soccer so we hit up the specified for some grub. The place is called Shoeless Joe’s and it turned out to be pretty darn good! We started with some “feta bruschetta”

Times that wedge by 2. Then I had a Cajun Chicken sandwich..

This was one huge beast! It came with sweet potato fries. Check it out!

It was actually much bigger than the pictures lets on! My hubby helped out with the fries and I didn’t eat all the foccacia, but I came darn close. Although some of the desserts looked extremely tempting, I was just too full and decided to wait until later on for some froyo at home.

And that’s where I’m at now, folks! I have a phone call to make when I’m done here and then I’ll be settling in with some maple walnut goodness. The rain has long stopped, but the air is still pretty heavy so I think this will be a great cooling treat! Tomorrow is suppose to be gorgeous so we have plans to head to T.O. once again. Check back in 24 to see where we ended up!

Bye for now!!